Republican lawmakers have sparked outrage and constitutional concerns after calling for the mass deportation and denaturalization of Muslims in the United States, following a terrorist attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, that left 15 people dead. The inflammatory rhetoric from Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) and Representative Randy Fine (R-Florida) has drawn condemnation from civil rights organizations, legal experts, and Democratic lawmakers who warn that the statements violate fundamental constitutional protections.
Lawmakers’ Inflammatory Statements Following Bondi Beach Attack
Within hours of the December 14 shooting at Bondi Beach, where two gunmen opened fire on a crowd of approximately 1,000 people celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, Republican officials rushed to blame the entire Muslim community and advocate for collective punishment. Senator Tuberville declared on social media that “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult,” adding that Americans must “SEND THEM HOME NOW or we’ll become the United Caliphate of America”.
Representative Randy Fine escalated the rhetoric further, stating: “It is time for a Muslim travel ban, radical deportations of all mainstream Muslim legal and illegal immigrants, and citizenship revocations wherever possible. Mainstream Muslims have declared war on us. The least we can do is kick them the hell out of America”. New York City Council Member Vickie Paladino joined the chorus, calling for “the expulsion of Muslims from western nations”.
The statements notably ignored a crucial detail: Ahmed al-Ahmed, a 43-year-old Syrian Muslim refugee and Australian citizen, risked his life to disarm one of the attackers, likely saving dozens of lives in the process. Al-Ahmed was shot multiple times in the hand and shoulder during his heroic intervention, but succeeded in wrestling a rifle away from one of the gunmen.
Constitutional and Legal Concerns Raised by Experts
Legal scholars and civil rights advocates immediately condemned the lawmakers’ statements as fundamentally incompatible with constitutional principles. Dylan Williams, Vice President for Government Affairs at the Center for International Policy, characterized the rhetoric as demanding “religious purges,” noting that “this is a U.S. Senator calling for the roundup and expulsion of millions of people based on their religion”. Williams added that such actions would be “profoundly un-American, irreconcilably hostile to Constitutional rights and our foundational values,” calling Tuberville “unfit for public office” and subject to “censure and removal”.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, emphasized the historical context, pointing out that “a country whose earliest colonists came fleeing religious persecution and whose Founders thought that protecting against state interference with religion was so important it was put into the First Amendment” now faces a senator advocating religious discrimination.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) described Tuberville’s statements as “vile and un-American,” asserting that his “bigoted zealotry” would have made America’s founders “cringe”. Murphy has long been a critic of religious-based immigration restrictions, previously warning during the first Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban that such policies serve as “a gift to hardliners” and undermine national security.
CAIR Designates Tuberville as Anti-Muslim Extremist
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) took the unprecedented step of officially designating Senator Tuberville as an “anti-Muslim extremist”—the first time the organization has given a U.S. senator that designation. Corey Saylor, CAIR’s research and advocacy director, drew parallels to Alabama’s segregationist history, stating: “Senator Tuberville appears to have looked at footage of [former Alabama Gov.] George Wallace standing in a schoolhouse door to keep Black students out and decided that was a model worth reviving—this time against Muslims”.
CAIR has also called for Representative Fine’s resignation following his remarks about destroying “mainstream Muslims,” with the organization stating: “If any elected official had called for the genocide of all ‘mainstream Jews’ or ‘mainstream Christians,’ their career would rightfully be over”. The group emphasized that Fine’s “explicit call for the destruction” of Muslims confirms he is “unworthy of a seat in Congress”.
Trump-Era Muslim Bans and Current Immigration Policy
The recent rhetoric echoes policies implemented during President Trump’s first term, when Executive Order 13769 in January 2017 banned travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—and indefinitely suspended Syrian refugee admissions. Despite multiple court challenges finding the ban constituted religious discrimination and violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the Supreme Court ultimately upheld a revised version in June 2018.
According to the Cato Institute, the Muslim ban resulted in a 91 percent reduction in Muslim refugees between 2016 and 2018, and a 30 percent drop in immigrant visas issued to nationals of 49 Muslim-majority countries. The current Trump administration has continued this trajectory, halting all immigration petitions from Afghan nationals following a November 2025 shooting in Washington, D.C., in which an Afghan national who entered through Operation Allies Welcome allegedly shot two National Guard members.
Intelligence officials have reportedly proposed an even more extreme measure: deporting approximately 2 million people from mostly Muslim countries who entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, forcing them to reapply from abroad if they wish to return. Senator Tuberville specifically called for an “IMMEDIATE BAN” on “ISLAM immigrants” and deportation of “every single Islamist” following the D.C. shooting.
Republican Division Over Afghan Refugee Policy
Not all Republicans have embraced the hardline stance. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) has pushed back against blanket deportations of Afghan refugees, particularly those who assisted U.S. forces, stating: “There are Afghan citizens who acted as guards, drivers, interpreters, cooks for our troops. I’ve talked to veterans who have been very concerned about the safety of Afghans who have helped us. So I think the answer is more intensive and careful vetting than occurred during the Biden administration”.
However, House Republican leadership has moved in the opposite direction, stripping a bipartisan provision from the National Defense Authorization Act that would have brought back an office at the State Department responsible for relocating Afghan refugees. The provision’s removal signals alignment with the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration stance.
Broader Pattern of Islamophobia in Republican Politics
The recent statements represent an escalation of long-standing Islamophobic rhetoric within segments of the Republican Party. During his 2016 campaign, Trump explicitly called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” framing it as a national security imperative. The Brennan Center for Justice documented how the Trump administration systematically targeted Muslims through both speech and policy, including the elevation of Islamophobic advisors to key White House positions and the development of “extreme vetting” procedures designed to exclude Muslims.
Representative Fine has a documented history of anti-Muslim statements, previously asserting that “while many Muslims are not terrorists, they represent the radical fringe, not the mainstream,” and claiming during a congressional hearing that he is “not afraid” of being called Islamophobic. In recent weeks, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott have designated CAIR as a “foreign terrorist organization” through state executive orders—a designation not recognized by the federal government—prompting CAIR to file lawsuits challenging the orders as unconstitutional.
The Hero Republicans Ignored
The rush to scapegoat Muslims stands in stark contrast to the actual heroism displayed during the Bondi Beach attack. Ahmed al-Ahmed, who arrived in Australia in 2006 as a refugee from Syria’s Idlib region, operates a modest fruit shop in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire and is a father of two. When gunfire erupted at the Hanukkah celebration, al-Ahmed initially took cover behind a parked car before making the split-second decision to confront one of the attackers.
“When he saw people dying and their families being shot, he couldn’t bear to see people dying,” his cousin Mustafa Al-Asaad told Australian media. “It was a humanitarian act, more than anything else. It was a matter of conscience”. Al-Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Fateh al-Ahmed, expressed pride in his son’s actions: “He has the urge to protect people. When he saw people lying on the ground and blood everywhere, his conscience and soul immediately compelled him to pounce on one of the terrorists and snatch the gun from him”.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited al-Ahmed in the hospital, posting a photo on social media with the caption: “Ahmed, you are an Australian hero. You put yourself in danger to protect others, rushing towards peril at Bondi Beach and disarming a terrorist”. A GoFundMe campaign established to support al-Ahmed’s recovery has raised over 1.4 million Australian dollars (approximately $930,000).
President Trump, speaking at the White House, acknowledged al-Ahmed’s bravery without mentioning his religion or refugee background, stating: “It’s been a very, very brave person...who went and attacked frontally one of the shooters and saved a lot of lives”. Jewish community leaders in Australia and abroad have expressed deep gratitude for al-Ahmed’s intervention, with many seeing it as an affirmation that solidarity can cross religious divides even in moments of profound fear.
Implications for Civil Rights and Democracy
The statements by Tuberville, Fine, and others represent what critics characterize as an explicit embrace of religious discrimination as Republican policy. As Dylan Williams noted, “A congressman says mainstream Muslims should be ‘destroyed.’ A senator says Islam is not a religion and Muslims should be sent ‘home.’ A NYC councilwoman calls for the ‘expulsion’ and ‘denaturalization’ of Muslims. Fascist anti-Muslim bigotry is now explicit Republican policy”.
Civil rights organizations warn that allowing such rhetoric to go unchallenged normalizes religious persecution and undermines the constitutional foundations of American democracy. The designation of CAIR as a terrorist organization by two state governors, despite no federal recognition of such status, sets a troubling precedent for politically motivated targeting of advocacy groups.
With the Trump administration already implementing travel bans affecting multiple Muslim-majority countries and proposing mass deportations of refugees, the question facing Congress and the American public is whether the constitutional protections enshrined in the First Amendment will withstand this coordinated assault on religious freedom. As Senator Murphy emphasized in 2017 during the first Muslim ban debates, such policies not only violate American values but also compromise national security by fueling extremist narratives and alienating Muslim allies essential to counterterrorism efforts.
The stark contrast between Ahmed al-Ahmed’s selfless heroism and the collective punishment advocated by Republican lawmakers serves as a potent reminder that individual character and moral courage transcend religious and ethnic categories—a lesson that appears lost on those calling for mass expulsions based solely on faith.